28 Swindles
by Usemychopsticks
Summary: Twenty-eight stories exploring the many sides of the Combaticons' salesman. Exploring: Brawl thinks it's a good idea to air out dirty laundry on a drive. Swindle thinks otherwise.
1. Well shagged

**Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers**  
><strong>Title: Well-shagged (28 Swindles)<strong>  
><strong>Summary: Another, not out of the ordinary, prank on the Nemesis.<strong>  
><strong>Characters: Swindle, Blast Off, Vortex, Brawl (Speaking role only), and mentions of other decepticons.<strong>  
><strong>Continuity: G1<strong>  
><strong>Rating: T<strong>  
><strong>Pairings: Only hinted Blast OffVortex.**  
><strong>Warnings: None<strong>  
><strong>Notes: Written for raelynhb on livejournal. <strong>

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><p><strong>Well-Shagged: Or how Swindle became a walking carpet.<strong>

Blast Off did not enjoy the company of others, and even his teammates grated on his nerves often. However, this was one time he did not mind seeing Swindle walk through the door. The jeep was covered in various globs of white with, what must have been, a truck load of shag carpeting sticking to him. Blast Off was insanely amused, but was too dignified to show it.

That did not matter as Vortex was laughing enough for the both of them.

"What the slag happened to you?" the copter sniggered.

"Frag off!" Swindle snapped back, and maneuvered around Vortex to get to the wash racks.

"I said, 'What the slag happened to you?'" Vortex asked again moving to block his path. Swindle glared knowing that his teammate wouldn't move until he got an answer. Violence was the only other option.

"And I told you to frag off!" Swindle retorted. The smaller mech raised his fist to take a swing at Vortex so Blast Off spoke up.

"If the two of you fight and destroy anything in this room Onslaught will know about it and then you will be thrown in the brig until he deems to let you out"

Swindle turned his irate glare towards the shuttle, and for a moment looked as if he was about to switch targets. Instead he took a few deep breaths, and calmed himself down. Vortex was grinning under his face mask.

"So, you were about to tell us how you came to resemble a carpet?" Vortex put his hand on Blast Off and leaned against him as he started tapping his finger expectantly.

"Stop that" Blast Off swatted him off.

"Don't you dare tell Brawl"

"Scout's honor" Vortex raised his hand mockingly. His other hand, hidden behind his back, crossed his fingers.

"I got off duty earlier today, and Skywarp came up to me" the seeker's name alone explained a lot.

"So he says, 'Swindle I got this piece of an autobot guardian some guy took out on Cybertron'" Swindle continued, "he tells me that guy died in a battle a while after, and everybody raided his stuff".

"He tells me that he wants me to sell it, and give him fifty percent. I think sure, why the frag not? I could always negotiate with him to accept thirty percent, after all Skywarp isn't the brightest" the jeep started getting agitated.

"I go with him down to the storage bay, and guess what!"

"Instead of the merchandise he promised you, an elaborate prank is what you got?" Blast Off asked.

"Elaborate my aft! All he did was have Rumble dump a bucket of super glue on me and have Frenzy dump another one filled with carpeting right after! And there was NO FRAGGING MERCHENDISE!"

Swindle yelled out the last part, which Vortex found infinitely amusing.

"So Skywarp and Soundwave's runts covered you in glue and carpet that will possibly take hours to get off, and you're angrier about there not being any junk for you to sell?"

"Junk! Do you know how much a piece of an autobot guardian would go for on the black market? There are so few now that even a small piece could make a small fortune, and those glitches lied!"

"Just like you do on a daily basis" the jeep shook his fist at the shuttle.

"It was a perfect opportunity to make some money and now it's gone! I had to walk all the way down to one of the lowest storage bays and instead got covered in this slag! And there was no merchandise!"

"You've mentioned that already"

"You know I'm pretty sure the squishies could apply one of those morals that they always like to put in their stories to this" Vortex said.

"Let's see, how about not being a greedy idiot and Skywarp won't distribute righteous justice upon you" Blast Off quipped.

"There I've told you now will you get out of the way?" Vortex let Swindle pass now satisfied, but commed Brawl after the other was gone.

_"Brawl when you get back I've got something to show you" _

_"What? Did someone step on Laserbeak, and take pictures again?" _

_"You'll see. Just don't say anything to Swindle" _

Vortex giggled after he hung up. Blast Off sighed and shook his head.

"You know he'll be done washing it all off by the time Brawl gets back"

"Never fear Blast Off, I got it all on tape"

Vortex walked towards the door and reached upward towards the frame. He removed a small, hidden box with a glowing red dot on it, and put it in his subspace.

"How long has that been up there?"

"Long enough to get dirt on everyone who spends sufficient time in this room, including you"

"What do you want?"

"My room every single night for the next week"

"How about _my _room every other night for a week, and I'll give you the code to Onslaught's room"

"Deal"

**The End**


	2. Exploring

Title: Exploring

Characters: Swindle, and Brawl

Rating: T

Summary: Brawl thinks it's a good idea to air out dirty laundry on a drive. Swindle thinks otherwise.

Notes: For ultharkitty on livejournal. And I'm finally posting after an entire year.

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><p><em><strong>...Or how a jeep learned to express himself.<strong>_

"No"

Brawl really shouldn't have expected any other answer, but he figured that the plus side of being too dumb to know when to quit was exactly that. Swindle had driven a little ways ahead of him, so the tank quickly rumbled up beside him.

"Seriously though, what happened?"

"Absolutely nothing"

_Tact _he reminded himself of what Vortex had told him. Swindle had more buttons than a radio panel when it came to his team, and it shouldn't have taken much for him to spill, but there really was that issue of tact. The copter had told Brawl that even he should've been able to muster up enough of it to get their teammate to talk, though his barely disguised laughter belied his actual thoughts, which was yet another reminder of being tactful and how Brawl decidedly wasn't.

They pulled up on the curb of the road, and transformed simultaneously. Swindle didn't bother looking at the tank as he headed off into the trees, disappearing amongst a tangle of green. Brawl grumbled to himself and followed, getting slowly more and more ticked off as branches refused to stay pushed back, and continually smacked him in the chest. Honestly, if Swindle didn't even want to talk why did he even invite him to come on this outing?

_Because Blast Off wouldn't_ he dully reminded himself.

He exits to a small semi-circle or grass, cut off by the base of a huge cliff. Swindle stood near an opening in the aforementioned cliff, looking more than a bit annoyed.

"Hurry it up would you?" again not waiting for a response, he ducked into the entrance, engulfing himself in the black.

The spectrum of Brawl's temper did not run very far, and this time he dove right after his teammate, crashing into him, and landing the both of them in a pile of tangled limbs. He somehow managed to maneuver himself so that he was sitting on top of the jeep.

"Get off me Brawl!" he felt like telling Swindle that kicking him wasn't going to solve anything.

"Not until you tell me about you and that Autobot!" and Vortex said he needed tact. Hah.

"Seriously? Why do you even want to know?"

"Cause Vortex thinks you've been fragging him, and Onslaught wants to know if it'll frag anything up, and Blast Off acts like he doesn't care but according to Tex he does. Kinda. And I just… I just kinda want to know"

"Primus," Swindle stopped struggling, and laid his face on the dusty ground. Brawl briefly wondered if that was uncomfortable. ", that was vorns ago, and I was not fragging him. What's wrong with Vortex?"

_Lots of things _Brawl wanted to answer, but that nagging feeling that Swindle's was lying—not that it was surprising—overtook the urge, and he glanced down at the immobile form underneath him.

"Anything else?"

The kicking and thrashing resumed, and Brawl thinks that maybe Vortex was right after all.

"No, no, and no! Now get off me, those diamonds aren't going to collect themselves"

Swindle managed to grab a rock and somehow chuck it behind himself, hitting the tank in the head. Brawl hit him back, before getting off and the jeep glared at him, rubbing the new dent in his head.

"Fine then, I'll just get them myself" more turning of his back to Brawl occurred and the tank hoped it wasn't going to become a regular event.

"Come on," he stalked after his teammate, who was doing a very good impression of a wall, "if it happened vorns ago it really can't matter. You could do that self-express thing that the squishies really like when they talk to those fancy guys in white on TV shows"

Swindle whirled around, looking much tougher than his size really should've let him appear, "You want expression? LEAVE ME ALONE"

There was a pregnant pause between the two of them, Swindle's outburst filling up the entire space.

"Feel better?" Brawl finally asked.

The rock thrown at his face gave the answer.

"It can't be that fragging bad. I mean unless Tex was right"

"Vortex is not right" Swindle snapped, turning around to go deeper into the cave.

"But you liked him though"

"Not in the way you all are clearly thinking"

"So you did like him?"

"Go away"

"Err…if it helps I don't really care"

"Fantastic. You won't ask me about it anymore then"

This was getting them nowhere. They came to the very back of the cave, which widened into a circular room filled with boulders, stalagmites, and stalactites of various shapes and sizes. Swindle began inspecting behind every structure in the room.

"Said it'd be behind one of these things, but of course he had to pick a place filled with hundreds of them" he grumbled.

Brawl figured that helping out would ease up the tension, so he started looking as well. Luck had it in for him that he found a large crate behind his first boulder.

"Is this it?" Swindle pushed past him roughly and pried the lid open, revealing hundreds of shimmering diamonds. He picked one up and scrutinized it.

"Yeah," he picked the box up, "let's go"

Nothing was said as they made their way back to the entrance, until Brawl brought the subject back up.

"So you liked him, right?"

Swindle sighed, too tired to fight back anymore, "If I tell you, you'll stop asking?"

"Yep"

"Fine. We were partners. That's it. We scammed, we stole, we lived it up until he joined the bots and I joined the cons, and that was that," he shrugged, "there's nothing more to it"

"Oh" the silence afterwards felt discomfortingly empty, and he pointed to the box of diamonds, "You want me to carry that?"

"Why not?" Swindle handed him the crate.

Brawl would only have had it for a short ways, since the diamonds would be loaded onto the jeep once they reached the road again, but they both figured the tank had come for a reason. They reached the entrance of the cave, the surroundings quiet until…

"So did you frag him?"

"VORTEX" Swindle was not amused. Brawl himself was startled, almost dropping the diamonds, and glared at the copter.

"Okay, so I didn't think Brawl would be able to get it out of you, but it was still fun watching him try." the copter placed himself on a nearby rock and looked quizzically at his teammate, "So did you frag him?"

As Swindle hurled a million dollar diamond at the laughing mech, Brawl decided that maybe he never should have mentioned the idea of self-expression.


End file.
